Video: The Hot Air Santorum interview

posted at 3:20 pm on February 11, 2012 by Ed Morrissey

Yesterday, Tina Korbe and I had an opportunity to sit down with the new Republican frontrunner in the nomination race, Rick Santorum. He had just finished giving his well-received CPAC speech, and we started off by asking Santorum about his request to voters gathered here at the convention to vote with their honor in mind. Santorum talked about the importance of ensuring that the GOP puts its “best foot forward” in the nomination process as well as the general election. Tina asked about how Santorum plans to appeal to millenials, and as I write this, a CPAC panel is addressing the larger issue of winning the youth vote for Republicans. “It should be easier this time,” Santorum replied, “to make the case to a generation that’s facing double-digit unemployment — high double-digit unemployment coming out of high school and college — that’s facing an extra $5 trillion debt burden that they’re going to have to pay.”

We didn’t let the issue of the HHS mandate go unremarked, either. I asked Santorum about Barack Obama’s “accommodation” announced yesterday and asked if this episode didn’t validate the concerns of social conservatives about Obama all along — and Santorum quickly noted, “This isn’t a social-conservative issue. This is a First Amendment issue. This is a freedom of conscience issue.” Santorum noted that the concept of insurance is to protect against serious financial risk, and yet the mandate forces employers to pay for relatively minor and routine maintenance strategies involving voluntary activity. “They’re using insurance to impose their will,” Santorum replied, “and crush the freedom of religion that Catholics used to be able to exercise.” In fact, the accommodation makes the problem worse, Santorum says, because “you’ve now just eliminated every faith-based insurer. If you have a Catholic insurer who offers health insurance, they’re not going to be able to do that. This is the Obama administration being too cute by half,” Santorum concludes, “and so in my opinion there is no substantive difference” between the two positions — and Santorum accurately predicted that the Catholic Church would reject this “accommodation.”

I then asked Santorum to offer a bit of political analysis and ask him how the Obama administration could have bungled this so badly in an election year. “This is who they are,” Santorum replied. Indeed.

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So Sean Hannity has a television show and not Ed Morrissey and Tina Korbe? That’s not fair.

terryannonline on February 11, 2012 at 4:52 PM

I wouldn’t mind if Ed got a regular radio show from some major call letters.
I listen when he subs on some…and he does not grate on your nerves like a Hannity does, with repetitions. I’m not in a position during work, to stream his show…so I have to settle for the weekends.

It could’ve been shorter, IMHO.
TXUS on February 11, 2012 at 5:22 PM
I’m a very short gal so it is hard for me to find short skirts. Skirts that are supposed to be short really don’t fit me all that short. LOL!
terryannonline on February 11, 2012 at 5:25 PM

These days, you can probably find your perfect short skirt in the kids section.

Great interview, Ed and Tina. Santorum hits the nail on the head regarding abortion, contraceptives and insurance. This is an attack on religion, and more unconstitutional encroachment on our freedoms. The Obama administration is doing its best to dismantle and discredit the U.S. Constitution and impose its own “laws” on the people, in a similar fashion as Hugo Chavez has in Venezuela. Wake up America, wake up now and vote this guy out of office, or you might wake up one morning and find out that your freedom is gone. That’s the change Obama has in mind, and you had better believe it.

I find Tina’s choice of skirt disapointing and needlessly distracting. I’d say the same thing if Ed wore shorts that short. You are not a ‘booth babe’, so don’t dress like one. Choose better next time.

AnotherOpinion on February 11, 2012 at 4:39 PM

So! If A_ _ O likes to look at Ears…there will be no more pictures of JugEars…SO THERE!

Santorum would be much better than the other three choices. Just a fact.

PappyD61 on February 11, 2012 at 4:24 PM

I agree. Romney is too wishy-washy, Newt is too politically corrupt and Paul is too libertarian.

Santorum voted with the Republicans on some big government bills, but what a lot of these younger people don’t understand is that Santorum also cut more from the federal deficit than anyone running. He authored the Welfare Reform Act and got it passed through a hostile Senate. He also, rightly, voted no on NAFTA, tried to reign in Fannie and Freddie and predicted the housing calamity, took on entitlement reform and led the fight against Hilarycare. When he was in the House, he helped to uncover the House banking and post-office scandals.

Santorums list of CONSERVATIVE accomplishments is long and, as Rush said, Rick has been a consistant conservative.

He authored the Welfare Reform Act and got it passed through a hostile Senate. He also, rightly, voted no on NAFTA, tried to reign in Fannie and Freddie and predicted the housing calamity, took on entitlement reform and led the fight against Hilarycare. When he was in the House, he helped to uncover the House banking and post-office scandals.

Santorums list of CONSERVATIVE accomplishments is long and, as Rush said, Rick has been a consistant conservative.

fight like a girl on February 11, 2012 at 6:25 PM

First, Santorum did not author the Welfare Reform Act. In the end, the Senate just adopted the House bill, which was negotiated between Clinton and Gingrich directly. Second, it didn’t go through “a hostile Senate”. Not only did the Republicans hold a majority at that time, Clinton had already vetoed two previous versions and thought that another veto in an election year would have been bad politics, so he influenced the Democrats to support it. About 50% of them followed his lead in both the House and Senate.

Furthermore, in 1993 when HillaryCare was permanently shelved, Rick Santorum was just an insignificant 2-term backbencher in the House. Nothing more. The Minority Leader in the House was Robert Michel, the Minority Whip was…wait for it…Newt Gingrich. In the Senate (where the legislation really died, because in the House the Republicans were severely outnumbered) the Minority Leadership was Bob Dole (Leader) and Alan Simpson (Whip).

It is quite possible that Santorum is trying to take credit for all of the things that you, er, give him credit for, but in fact that is not the case. You might want to re-check your sources.

“It should be easier this time,” Santorum replied, “to make the case to a generation that’s facing double-digit unemployment — high double-digit unemployment coming out of high school and college — that’s facing an extra $5 trillion debt burden that they’re going to have to pay.”

First, Santorum did not author the Welfare Reform Act. In the end, the Senate just adopted the House bill, which was negotiated between Clinton and Gingrich directly. Second, it didn’t go through “a hostile Senate”. Not only did the Republicans hold a majority at that time, Clinton had already vetoed two previous versions and thought that another veto in an election year would have been bad politics, so he influenced the Democrats to support it. About 50% of them followed his lead in both the House and Senate.

Furthermore, in 1993 when HillaryCare was permanently shelved, Rick Santorum was just an insignificant 2-term backbencher in the House. Nothing more. The Minority Leader in the House was Robert Michel, the Minority Whip was…wait for it…Newt Gingrich. In the Senate (where the legislation really died, because in the House the Republicans were severely outnumbered) the Minority Leadership was Bob Dole (Leader) and Alan Simpson (Whip).

It is quite possible that Santorum is trying to take credit for all of the things that you, er, give him credit for, but in fact that is not the case. You might want to re-check your sources.

Our research shows that Santorum was a major contributor in drafting at least the vetoed legislation. He started hammering out the details of a plan to overhaul welfare entitlements while serving as ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee in the early ’90s.”

We’re supposed to comment on Tina’s legs? I was going to say, “Nice Brazilian.” Also, I hope you get that Lapso Apso off your chest.

It’s a different mindset to dress for camera. I realize you think you are dressing to your height with a short skirt but in doing so the overall image becomes one of body type. You should be dressing for the elongated line of the garment(s) instead. In photographs or on camera, you will appear taller if your knees are not showing when standing or sitting. Short skirts should be a pale shade or if dark, worn with dark hose to elongate the body line as much as possible. (Contrast images of Duchess Kate’s elongated lines and Princess Eugenie’s body type knee images.)

Upper garments should not carry their detail, weight, or openness below the breastplate so head movements will never appear bobble-ish and the face is block framed for natural eye contact. Old school. “Rita Hayworth gave good face. Lauren, Lana, Katherine too. Ladies with an attitude…”

Your hair is the female equivalent of the mullet. Swept away from the face is always a plus but control the rest. You are youthful so a crown or nape ponytail would be pleasing and professional.

Check out the bases loaded of fail: S.E. Cupp’s interview of Donald Rumsfeld. 1) She has the ridiculous hair of a Veronica Lake poser and physically must combat the urge to flip it, 2) She is wearing a solid block of color that for her coloring could be a lipstick shade, 3) Her skirt is so short that her legs must be crossed to avoid giving the interviewee an up-skirt view, 4) Her work product must rest upon her stockings or bare! legs, 5) and the questions dive off the cliff of banal. With her time in the business she can’t recover but you can.

Should you find yourself hard-pressed for original and topical questions, “Go to the [Euro trash] mattresses!” Mr. Santorum is quite clear he is a clear contrast to Mitt Romney who supported TARP. Therefore, what are Santorum’s thoughts on Romney’s support (as thoughtfully expressed in the Bloomberg debate) for the Obama administration’s course of the U.S. Fed bailing out, not specific European companies or banks as the Fed already did this with TARP, but now the Fed will bail out EU “nation states” with U.S. taxpayer dollars through an IMF “TARP like” fund estimated to need $2 trillion?

The only way this helps the euro is for the Fed to print money so this is no help at all outside of maintaining the financial status quo, and regulating Frank-Dodd to align American financial services with and enabling the European Union morphing into the forthcoming Financial Union. As the EU imposed technocrat as Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti said in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, 2/9/12, “We are putting together this strange experiment,” of economic and political integration without consent of the governed all about “structural reforms” country by country as “incubated” in Brussels and now “networked out” through “central banking harmonization” of sector correcting “cross border integration” retrenching fragmentation via IMF quantitative easing, state aid, as rewriting bond contracts, “once this page is turned, it will be favorable” to the bond holders and the markets. Carrot meet stick.

Furthermore, when directly asked what his response would be to Republican presidential candidates who say Europe is socialist and America is negatively moving in that direction, Mr. Monti replied, “What Europe really brings is pro-market integration.” Mr. Monti stressed, “Europe has been a powerful factor in liberalizing the economy.” Beware, utopian masterminds at work. How would a Santorum administration not surrender individual and national sovereignty in a truce to decline but ensure more principled conservative, enduring public policy?

Personally, I want no part of imposing penury through loans-for-austerity on nations or peoples through further subsidizing international, Wall Street bad behaviour by socializing losses and privatizing profits. And you?

Follow-up: In light of Mr. Romney’s 2012 CPAC speech, spirited assertion, “I was a severely conservative Republican governor,”did severely liberal Massachusetts change course once Romney quit his reelection campaign and rode off into the sunset of his perpetual presidential campaign? If not, what were these decentralized power and free market changes in state governance he successfully articulated to enact for lasting constitutional, pro private sector growth change?

He authored the Welfare Reform Act and got it passed through a hostile Senate.

TBob: that is the quote I was responding to. I did not say that Santorum had no role, only that it he did not author the bill or lead the fight to get it passed, which are his very specific claims.

Even your own quote, which is the most favorable of the various fact checks on this claim out there, says only that he was: “A major contributor in drafting at least the vetoed legislation.” Others give most of the credit to the Republican leadership in the House and Senate, in particular Gingrich for negotiating the final deal with Clinton that allowed it to pass. There was no “fight to get it passed” for Santorum to lead in the end, because it was a done deal by the time it reached the Senate.

In any case, in the end the Senate version of the bill was dropped in favor of the House version, which Santorum could not have authored as he was not in the House at this time.

Finally, one minor point regarding your WaPo analysis: Santorum was never “ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee”. That person usually has about 122 years of seniority (approximately)…Santorum served in the House for only 4. Even each subcommittee has very senior members. So I have no idea what they were trying to say there.

TBob: that is the quote I was responding to. I did not say that Santorum had no role, only that it he did not author the bill or lead the fight to get it passed, which are his very specific claims.

Even your own quote, which is the most favorable of the various fact checks on this claim out there, says only that he was: “A major contributor in drafting at least the vetoed legislation.” Others give most of the credit to the Republican leadership in the House and Senate, in particular Gingrich for negotiating the final deal with Clinton that allowed it to pass. There was no “fight to get it passed” for Santorum to lead in the end, because it was a done deal by the time it reached the Senate.

In any case, in the end the Senate version of the bill was dropped in favor of the House version, which Santorum could not have authored as he was not in the House at this time.

Finally, one minor point regarding your WaPo analysis: Santorum was never “ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee”. That person usually has about 122 years of seniority (approximately)…Santorum served in the House for only 4. Even each subcommittee has very senior members. So I have no idea what they were trying to say there.

I wonder if people who post about Tina’s look realize how rude they’re being?

I’m sorry, but the woman has made at least one post lamenting how women should dress modestly and she frequently comes across with a heavy-handed pro-traditional-woman bias (which I happen to share.) She is not dressed modestly, nor like a woman who makes being taken seriously a priority. To expect people who remember her posts to just overlook the hypocrisy is to ask us to pretend to be morons. She obviously should have worn a longer skirt or she should have done the interview standing. This really isn’t up for debate, anybody with any ounce of decorum who isn’t a guy thinking with the wrong head would say the same thing. And not only is the skirt too short, but it’s paired with that ridiculous up-to-the neck shirt to create a jarringly lopsided effect–winter from the waist up, summer from the waist down, she obviously was either going to be cold or hot–i.e. she was not dressed appropriately.

People already think that Republicans are sexist pigs. We’ve already got Fox News making us look bad. Tina is not representing us well by dressing like a supreme court justice who’s missing the rest of her skirt, and we are entitled to point this out. It’s an amateur’s mistake, they happen, but people can’t improve if everybody just kisses their rear and acts like nothing is wrong.

With regards to Tina’s attire I point to the Republican human style guide himself, Roger Stone’s description of Blake lively,

The Gossip Girl star has legs that go on forever. If she’s sporting a short skirt she hides the cleavage. If showing the decolletage she sheaths her legs in a long dress – in other words, Lively knows when too much is too much.